Show Me
by sissyHIYAH
Summary: When the only thing that matters is the one thing you can't let get to you.


"Are you asleep?"  
Water drips on the floor_ tap tap tap_ and Xu wonders if it looks silver in the darkness. Does it pool like molten metal or does it simply evaporate?  
Tap tap tap.  
Quistis has been in the shower for an hour and the steam is more felt than seen. She hadn't bothered with the lights when she came home, choosing to shower in darkness, stumbling and dropping things, cursing when she hit her shins on the furniture.  
"Would you comb my hair for me?"  
Tap tap tap.  
Of course. Xu always combs her hair for her, though she never tires of hearing her ask. Quistis is next to her, moving, in front of her, moving, sitting between her knees now, naked and wet from her shower and pressing a comb into her hands like she always does and Xu can never deny her, no, not her.  
It's heavy and wet, warm mercury sliding through her fingers, cooling as she touches it. She likes it even though it seems Quistis didn't bother drying her hair at all and her sheets are wet from the drip drip dripping of the water. Xu hasn't removed her uniform yet and her legs are growing damp as well. It will need to be cleaned in the morning anyway, but the thought of drying her uniform just to clean it annoys her.  
The comb is cheap plastic, basic black, Garden issue, packaged with the toothbrush that shed its bristles and the useless safety razor that every cadet received upon enrollment. Xu flicks the teeth with her thumbnail as she goes, one-two-three-four, trying to pretend that she can't feel how cool Quistis is growing as the water evaporates from her skin.  
Ten minutes pass.  
Twenty.  
Thirty.  
Xu can feel the drying strands come alive with electricity, even though the hair against Quistis' neck is still damp. She briefly wonders if she would be electrocuted if she were smaller and the static bursts proportionately stronger, then dismisses the thought as ludicrous.  
Quistis shifts and Xu can feel her shoulder blades come together like stunted wings. She has no feathers, though. Ink and glass should have formed her wings, but in Garden even the prettiest imps are grotesque mockeries of their fairy twins.  
"So?"  
She's leaning back now and her head is on Xu's shoulder. She's heavy for being so slim and Xu is thinking of elf rings strangling the moon, drowning in silver cotton and wine the color of night.  
"So... what?"  
It comes out rougher than she intends but it's too late, punch you, no punch backs, hey that's against the rules, I'm telling, I'm telling, I'm telling.  
She moves her shoulders again and Xu remembers that summer when they were both injured in a training accident and Quistis had her arm in the sling, how she finally surrendered and allowed Xu to carry her books for her.  
Sharp ridges dig into her breasts, elbows on her thighs, all of her weight on her now, back to belly, pushing, pushing, pushing. Xu isn't sure if she should lean back or press forward. So heavy. Why is she so heavy?  
Quistis is moving again and her mouth is against Xu's throat and the clouds are no longer around the moon but hovering over chimneys, morphing into smoke and condensing into shower steam and the ice is starting to fall and the comb falls from her hand.  
"So why aren't you trying to comfort me?"  
Heavy, so heavy and no, she's hurt, she's injured again, something is wrong, why is she so heavy, this is a mistake, something has happened.  
"What?"  
It's no mistake, no, this mouth on her throat and that weight on her body and Quistis' palms on her knees. She's reaching back, yes, and she's taking Xu's hands in her own and pulling her arms around her like she's trying to mummify herself.  
"Can't you see that I'm upset?"  
Xu wonders if she's drunk but she knows better because Quistis won't touch alcohol. Not her. Xu stiffens her arms so that she doesn't feel belly and breasts and hips and skin warmed from something she doesn't understand.  
"I know that you know."  
Quistis sounds like she does when she's fighting now, all clipped words and dictionary precision. She won't waste her breath when she's trying to kill, oh no, not when she has flesh in her teeth and blood on her tongue and she's shaking her head, trying to tear, trying to consume.  
"Know what?"  
A chuckle, a gasp, a cry.  
"My job. I know that you know that I've been fired."  
It was words on her throat at first, just warm air and barely there vibrations, but now it's teeth and tongue and soft, soft lips and Xu is falling forward and she smells shampoo and toothpaste and something else and everything is blurring in the dark.  
"What are you...?"  
"Don't you want to _hold_ me?" Quistis turns then, serpent quick, hands slithering under hemlines and Xu can't tell if it's calluses or skin puckered from the water but her hands are so rough. Her fingers reach elastic and stop.  
It's quiet except for the hum of the ventilation system. Quistis is grinding her teeth when her mouth isn't on Xu. "Don't you want to make things _better_ for me?"  
"I don't know what you...what you..."  
Grateful for the darkness, Xu touches her friend's chin, her cheeks, her temples, the drum-tight tendons in her jaw. She almost expects to feel her face crumble between her fingers, like gold plating on a centuries-old statue. "Shh. I don't know what you're talking about, but..."  
The air thickens, curdles, and Xu knows Quistis is smiling.  
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. I've seen how you watch me."  
"I don't...I don't watch you."  
Quistis seems frustrated. Her voice cracks. "You do. You watch everything I do." Her hands are moving again. Elastic snaps and fabric tears, though not so much that Xu's underwear can be removed.  
"I don't..." Quistis tugs and pulls and worries the band digging into Xu's thigh, occasionally fumbling against soft curls, though it's far more awkward than it should be. Xu isn't certain if she's disappointed or relieved. "I do not."  
"You were there tonight. I saw you."  
Ice shatters and Xu is falling, drowning for real this time, forcing air into her lungs that's suddenly bitter as gun smoke.  
Following the line of her sensible cotton panties with her knuckle, Quistis notes that the tendons in Xu's pelvis force a tiny gap to form between elastic and the flesh on her thigh, but then again, Xu had always been athletic. She's muscle and fire and terrifying drive. "Why did you come back here? Why didn't you rush to help me?"  
Because it was against the rules. Because it was after curfew. Because he was there. Because she had taken him there.  
"You were... talking. I couldn't interrupt."  
Quistis grips the inside of Xu's thighs and considers the tension there, if her skin might pop like an overripe melon if she squeezed hard enough. "Oh, but why not?"  
"Because..."  
"Because there was nothing to interrupt?"  
"You were...talking."  
Quistis laughs. "Talking? Is that what that was?"  
"I couldn't hear what..."  
"What if he had kissed me?"  
It's a disgusting thought. Xu's fingers twist in the sheets, her skirt, around Quistis' throat. She isn't sure. "But he didn't."  
Quistis kisses Xu's cheek and whispers, "But what if he had?"  
"Stop it."  
Dizzy now, thirsty, exhausted. A leaf turning her belly to a storm, beyond caring if she is torn from her branch or just soaked by the rain. "What if he had decided that he wanted more than a kiss? What if he had done this?"  
Fingers plunge home and Xu curses, twists, rolls to the other side of the bed.  
"Stop." Xu is breathing hard, she thinks, but she isn't certain of that, either.  
"Stop what? I'm only asking a question."  
"This isn't..."  
"Isn't what?"  
Xu adjusts her skirt, her blouse, realizes she's lost a button, her uniform is creased and unsightly. It doesn't matter that nobody can see her. That just isn't how things are done. "This isn't..."  
"Isn't this what you've always wanted?"  
"No."  
Keening, splintered, Xu clutches in the darkness, grabs hair, a shoulder, a wrist. Shadows and water aged by the sun, stained temple windows and copper coins lost to malicious wishing wells. Xu thinks she's losing her mind and Quistis is certain of it.  
Quistis' voice is so low that she's croaking, stumbling on simple words. "Tell me. Please."  
"I can't."  
Their clock burns red, the only light in their bedroom. Quistis knows that Xu has end-of-semester meetings to attend in the morning, but crawls to her anyway. She's not beyond begging at this point.  
"Then _show_ me."


End file.
